Thinking About Oral Arguments in Rex v. Zillow Appeal

This is a really difficult case, and perhaps DOJ picked the wrong case to pursue its goal

Stock image; not the actual oral argument before the 9th Circuit

Advance warning: This is going to get super law-nerdy.

On Thursday, oral arguments were had in the REX v. Zillow appeal in the 9th Circuit. The full video is available here. I may insert segments I find interesting below.

I thought it worth watching because the DOJ actually took the trouble, time and expense to fly a lawyer — Alice A. Wang — all the way from Washington DC to Honolulu for five minutes of oral argument. This was after the DOJ filed an amicus brief urging the Court to overturn the trial court’s summary judgment decision, and remand it for further proceedings.

I wrote about the amicus brief here.

I didn’t think I would learn anything new in this hearing that I didn’t know from the amicus brief and from the case in general… but I think I have.

For the TL;DR crowd: the DOJ appears to have a goal in mind, but it isn’t clear to me that this is the right case to achieve that goal. There are a couple of serious flaws in the case that I can’t quite understand.

As always, I write about legal issues in real estate, but I am not your lawyer. None of this is legal advice; it is edutainment.

Let’s get into it.